Monday Night Man (3 page)

Horst wrote out a résumé and cover letter. He'd kill two birds with one stone: turf Rupp, get a job, plus have his car back on the road again — three birds. Or two birds and one weasel.

Horst felt sure he had the job in the bag. So he went ahead and told Rupp that was it, he needed the car. Rupp surprised him with his calm.

“No problem. Leo said I could store my stuff in the basement here.”

Horst was actually disappointed there wasn't more drama. Not a word about the job, and no mention of how Rupp had tried hiding the job so Horst wouldn't get it and pull the car out from under him.

A week later two things happened. The first was that Horst got turned down for the job. He kept this secret. The second was that Rupp rear-ended a bus. A wrecker left the smashed-in remains of his Bug beside the Pacer. Rupp was in tears.

“Horst! Lemme buy your car. Lemme rent it! I'll give you two hundred a month, three hundred! I'll live in the Bug and use yours for work. How about it?”

Horst's voice was soaked in sympathy. “But Rupp,” Horst lied, “I'm working now. I need my car.”

Rupp's eyes went dead as a clubbed cod. Short, flabby, narrow-shouldered, he slumped to the steps and was having trouble breathing. “Horst, what about that job I showed you? Telephone sales. Maybe I could do that — from your place! You'll be out all day!” The hopefulness in Rupp's voice was embarrassing.

Horst didn't know what to do. But whatever it was, he wasn't telling Rupp the truth. Not yet anyway. “I don't know …”

“I won't use the toilet or anything! I promise. I'll even clean the place up!”

Horst drew a deep breath and gazed up the alley. “Let me think about it.”

The next day, Sunday, it rained. The world had returned to normal. It might be spring according to the calendar, but in Vancouver that meant nothing. The clouds slid in low and dense and heavy as slabs of clay, and it poured. It was dark and cold and November all over again. Horst felt a kind of relief. The relief of one born in Vancouver, whose earliest memories were of rain. Rain drumming, rain hissing, and rain drizzling. Rain from October to April. It calmed him. It made him feel at home. Horst wandered his place with a coffee, picking at his plants. He liked rainy mornings, especially Sunday mornings when he could hear the church bells up the street.

He looked out the window and watched Rupp sitting in the smashed-in Bug. The rain battered the metal roof, blurred the windows, and puddled around the wheels. Jesus, thought Horst. What a sight. Fifty years old and living in a car in an alley. Watching Rupp sitting out there like a toad in a hole, Horst decided: Okay. Tomorrow I'll tell him he can use my car. Nine to five. No evenings or weekends, though. And he's got to fork over two bills rent. Horst went over the conditions again in his mind, then added one more: And you can't use my toilet.

HORST WAS RELIEVED
when Rupp hit a big triactor. It meant he didn't have to worry anymore. Horst's friendship couldn't take much more. Rupp got his Bug fixed, found a decent apartment, paid five hundred toward the debt he owed Bunce, and got himself a good haircut. Then he invited Horst and Bunce to Melissa's restaurant, his treat. Glass of red in his hand, Rupp described his haircut.

“Went to one of those boutiques over on Robson. Beautiful girl trained at the Vidal Sassoon school in Los Angeles. Not some drunk in a smock. Vanessa. She was great. Offered me a coffee, put on classical music, gave me a shampoo, a scalp massage. Then you know what she did?” Rupp sat forward like they'd never believe it. “She talked about my hair.”

“Your hair?”

“Everyone's hair is different. It has a personality. You got to work with it, not against it. Otherwise it screws up your brain.”

Rupp's beard was trimmed so short Horst saw the shape of his face for the first time. The guy had no chin, and his eyes floated like aquarium creatures behind his glasses. Rupp's hair was combed straight forward.

“You look like Nero,” said Bunce.

“You should find yourself a good woman,” said Horst.

“Yeah, I know,” admitted Rupp, as if his playboy life had to stop.

“Like Rose,” said Bunce.

Rupp laughed. He'd been telling them about Rose the Nose. She lived in the suite directly beneath him and liked to come up and drink.

DAMAGED
GOODS

B
oyle Rupp phoned his friend Helmut. “Did it come?”

“It's here.”

Rupp hung up. He'd been waiting weeks for this package, but didn't want it delivered to the apartment because of Rose the Nose. More than once Rupp had caught her in the lobby by the mail shelf holding his letters to the light, trying to read through the envelopes. He headed down to Commercial Drive, to Helmut's Secondhand Store. Helmut's place hunkered like a bullfrog under a board between a health food co-op and a Latin American imports store. He refused to budge, despite repeated offers to buy him out, and complaints he was lowering the property values.

Rupp stepped into the store's stink of wet burlap, and found Helmut grinning like a pirate. The socket of his missing eye looked like a wad of wax mashed flat by a thumb. Helmut reached under his desk and came up with a box wrapped in plain brown paper. “Have fun.”

Rupp slipped it into the Safeway bag he'd brought and headed home.

Rupp pulled the bedroom blinds shut, turned on the lamp, and opened the box. He fit the bicycle pump to the valve, then inflated her, his eyes widening as she took shape — Miss Venezuela, 1990. He sat beside her on the bed, stroking her rubber cheek with the back of his finger. Then, groaning, he pressed his face to her belly, luxuriating in her smell of surgical rubber. After a while he sat up, cleared his throat, and studied the instructions, which were in French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and English. “Miss Venezuela, 1990. A reproduction authentic in every detail.” He skimmed the Maintenance paragraph and the Warning to keep her away from excessive heat and corrosives. Included was a bottle of lubricant, plus a tin of powder, so she didn't stick when folded and stored. Rupp peeled off his pants.

He'd just mounted her when the phone rang. He stared as if caught in the act by a searchlight and sirens. He looked like an iguana perched on top of her. When the phone stopped ringing, he looked at the windows, reassuring himself that no one could see in. Rose often came up from downstairs and tapped. From the day Rupp moved in, Rose started coming up to flirt and chat, and have a drink, but she'd never let Rupp do anything.

Rupp waited to be sure no one was snooping. Then he felt something moving beneath him. He looked at Miss Venezuela, and hissed in shock. She was shrinking! Her face distorting as if she were holding back tears, her chin dimpling, cheeks sucking. Her great huge eyes sank and folded together until there was only her nose, which was the last to go under, like the prow of a ship. Rupp stood beside the bed watching her sag and settle. A leak!

Frantic, he pumped her back up. Her breasts unfolded and popped up, first one then the other, and finally her face reappeared, as if retrieved from the withering eternity of old age. Rupp dropped the pump, and, like a dog discovering a corpse, he nosed her body, smelling, listening, feeling with the shaved skin of his cheek for the faint flute note of wind betraying the leak. He passed over the spot a number of times before realizing where it was — yes, it was her asshole.

Miss Venezuela was bent over the bench in the dingy back room of Helmut's store. Helmut sat behind her, spreading her cheeks with his thumbs and squinting at the hole, while Rupp held the flashlight. Helmut sat back and nodded.

“Looks good.” An old patching kit from a bicycle sat on the bench.

“Okay!” Rupp made a grab for her, but Helmut put his hand on Rupp's chest.

“Hold on. Gotta give her twenty-four hours to set.”

“Twenty-four hours!”

Helmut pointed to the stamp by the valve at her ankle. “Made in Taiwan. Should've paid a few bucks more and got a German one.”

“How's yours?”

“Three years now.” Helmut lit a cigarette then sat back, blowing smoke like a satisfied man.

Rupp headed home. Five o'clock, raining, and dark. Winter in Vancouver, like living in a drain pipe.

He lay down on the couch, arm across his eyes, exhausted. There was a knock on the door. He groaned.

“Well hello!” Rose stepped in and flashed him the bottle of Drambuie. She stripped off her coat. “It's freezing in here. Turn up the heat.”

Trying not to look as miserable as he felt, Rupp turned the oven on to Broil and opened the door to heat up the kitchen. Then he put water on for coffee.

Rose uncorked the Drambuie, gulped from the bottle, and moaned blissfully.

Rupp smelled her gardenia perfume from five feet away. Her dyed black hair was combed up in a wave off her forehead, and her purple dress shone like plastic where her belly and breasts bulged.

“Do you need any Mr Clean?” Rose asked. “We got 45,000 two-ounce samplers of Mr Clean. I kid you not — 45,000.”

“I got lots of Mr Clean left from last time.” Rupp set down two liqueur glasses. Rose worked at DisMar, a distributor of marketing samples — panty liners, shampoo, coupons, gum, pens. Rose was fifty, the same age as Rupp, and about a hundred and eighty pounds, the same weight as him. She'd been married four times to three men named Ray. Ray Fochuk, Ray Pelcher, Ray Volodiuk, and Ray Pelcher a second time.

“I phoned this afternoon.”

“Oh?” Rupp stood at the stove, staring at the pot of water on the glowing red element.

“You didn't answer.”

“I was out.”

“I heard you come in.”

Rupp stared harder at the stove. The water was hissing and the heat rushing from the open oven door was hot against his knees. “Oh, that's right,” he lied. “I was taking a nap.”

“You're a sound sleeper.”

“I unplugged the phone.”

Rose finished her Drambuie, ran her red tongue deep inside the glass, then poured more. “Funny. I heard it ringing.”

“You can't hear the phone from down there.”

“I hear everything.” She winked.

The water began boiling. From the corner of his eye, Rupp saw that Rose had her chin raised, watching him through amused eyes. Rupp shut the oven door, the kitchen was hot enough. The metal door clanged.

“You,” announced Rose, smiling, “are hiding something.”

Rupp laughed loudly. Too loudly. He poured the water into the coffee filter, watching the water fill the cone and then drain down. “Wish I was. Make my life more interesting.” He felt pleased with the calm of his come-back.

“I think your life's more interesting than you let on. What's in the bag?”

Rupp looked at Rose, then followed her gaze to the white plastic bag on the floor beside the oven. It was the bag containing Miss Venezuela.

“A sweater.”

“In a Safeway bag?”

Rupp said nothing.

“What kind of sweater?”

“Pullover.”

“Let's see.”

“It's too small. I'm taking it back.”

“Let's see anyway.”

“It's the wrong colour.”

“Why'd you buy it then?”

Rupp watched Rose's hand reach for the bag. She wore rings on every finger. She was going to see Miss Venezuela, 1990. Rupp pinned the bag tight against the side of the hot oven with his foot.

“Hey!” Rose wrinkled her forehead looking up at him. She was almost out of her seat reaching for the bag.

Rupp could see down between her boobs. He could also see into her hair. It was a gauzy black cloud of cotton candy.

Rose sat back and lit a Virginia Slim, the snap of her silver lighter as solid as a door lock. Rupp heard the rustle of her dress and nylons as she crossed her legs and considered him.

“Okay.” She blew smoke at the ceiling. “You don't want me to see what's in the bag. So, that means either it's embarrassing to you, or … ” and here she smiled at the alternative, “it's something that has to do with me.” She girlishly lifted one shoulder and blinked her eyes. “A Valentine's Day present?”

Rupp laughed. High and nervous. He picked up the bag. It smelled funny, and was so hot he had to juggle it.

“Well,” Rose assured him, “don't worry. I won't peek.” She refilled her glass with Drambuie.

Rupp went into the bedroom and hid the bag. When he returned, Rose was smiling. He watched her closely. Rupp found her sexy in a way. But she talked too much. She also had a mind of her own. That was a problem.

At midnight, Rupp half-carried Rose giggling to the elevator. At the door to her apartment, she hung onto him, and then her tongue, sweet with Drambuie, was in his mouth. She sighed and pressed closer, and Rupp gave in to the hard-on standing like a rolling pin in his pants. He put his hands on her ass and pulled her tight against him.

“Let's go in,” he whispered.

She smiled, gave him a last peck on the lips, then opened her eyes. “Sorry. I have to be up at five.”

Rupp watched the door close.

Upstairs, Rupp paced. Finally, he went into the bedroom and took Miss Venezuela from the bag. It had been nearly eight hours. The glue must have set. He held her up at arm's length — and groaned like he'd been stabbed. Her legs were melted together and one arm was melted across her breasts. Frantic, he pumped her up. It didn't help. She was grotesque. The oven heat had hit her like radiation. Rupp nearly wept. He slumped to the bed and sat a long time, holding her in his lap like a long-lost lover's blouse that still held a scent.

HORST WONDERED ABOUT
Boyle Rupp and Ray Bunce. How did they survive? Both were fifty, had complexions like fungus, and years of loneliness had distorted their minds the way greasy-spoon food had distorted their bellies. Living solo had beaten strange paths through their brains. Rupp and Bunce had “ways.”